


Blue

by mirkwood131



Series: EXO Central [38]
Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Byun Baekhyun & Do Kyungsoo | D.O Friendship, Byun Baekhyun-centric, Depression, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kissing, Living Together, M/M, painter byun baekhyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 21:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16103855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirkwood131/pseuds/mirkwood131
Summary: Chanyeol is catching butterflies. Baekhyun wants to catch and hold his heart in the palms of his hands.





	Blue

**Author's Note:**

> i am aware that depression is quite a sensitive topic but i felt the need to pour into something all of the bad feelings that i have been accumulating for the past couple of months.  
> i wasn't sure how to end this because it seemed like a never ending story, but i hope what i finally chose fits it in some way.  
> hope you'll enjoy:)

"I like this."

"Huh?"

"You weren't listening?" he asks, putting the paintbrush down.

"Not really."

"I was saying that I like the colour. Never thought blue would look...decent on walls." he says, angling his head to look at the stripe of paint right in front of him.

It shines in the yellow light, appearing more green than blue.

"It's dark turquoise."

"As you say." he laughs.

"No. Really."

He grabs his phone from the pocket of the overalls. Two sizes too big for him, covered in random splotches of turquoise; one on the strap, another on the front pocket that houses a pencil inside. And the last one on his chin. Even his fingers are painted blue.

"See? Dark turquoise."

"Baekhyun." he rolls his eyes. "It's blue."

"Chanyeol."

Baekhyun places the hands over his hips and sighs.

"It's called hues. Tones. Nuances. It's not just blue. Blue...is so...wide. Take chocolate for instance. There is milk chocolate with different colours depending on the ratio of cocoa butter and cocoa solids which-"

"Just stop!"

Chanyeol covers his mouth with the palm of his hand. Baekhyun bites the soft skin.

He winces; waves his hand around.

"Do you agree with me that it is dark turquoise and not...just blue?"

"Fine. But I still can't see the difference." Chanyeol laughs.

"Turquoise is blue that has green in it. If we mix paint-"

"Just stop!" Chanyeol laughs again. "I like the walls too. Will we make the whole apartment...dark turquoise?"

"Our apartment." Baekhyun grins.

"Our precious."

"Wouldn't that be too dark?" he asks, walking around until he stops in front of the door.

"Wouldn't you like it?"

"Maybe." Baekhyun shrugs. "Maybe not."

He walks back to where his brush is and picks it up. "Let's finish this."

 

-

 

He lets the stone fall down. After a while, it disappears. His feet dangle over the edge, over the lights that gathered like ants over a heap. They move, replaced by others and others, brighter or dimmer.

Baekhyun closes his eyes. It's dark. He opens them.

Light.

Brightness.

He looks back and sees the door to his room, separated by a wall and a door from the rest of the apartment. His. Chanyeol's and his.

Theirs.

He sighs.

The heap is growing bigger at times, lights gathering around smaller ones, until it all disperses. Some are dangling at windows and others from the sky.

He would call the colour unmellow yellow. Yellow, but not quite.

His feet still dangle and he would wish it were quiet. But the ants are noisy. Honking, talking, shouting. There's music coming from somewhere but Baekhyun doesn't like it. He prefers the quiet that he cannot actually find anywhere.

Even the apartment is noisy; with creaks and cracks and his footsteps and the smell of paint that is yet to be dry. But the smell is fine. That's usually how his paintings smell too.

He sighs again.

One feet hits the plaster of the building. Nothing falls only his fingers grab tighter at the edge. He is suddenly feeling them sweaty, cold. After each second he might slip and fall.

There's no stars. Or maybe they are but the lights are too bright for them. The sky is deep blue, almost black but not quite.

"Baek."

He glances back. Chanyeol is smiling, with ruffled hair, looking like a strange experiment. His eyes are bright and lips looking soft.

"I brought ice-cream and...cherry on the cake...some weed." he says.

Baekhyun laughs.

"In celebration for our amazing flat and our even more amazing dark turquoise paint job."

"Cheers!" Baekhyun laughs.

"Cheers..." Chanyeol whispers, looking down at him.

Baekhyun fully turns around and jumps down, next to Chanyeol. He is dizzy.

But Chanyeol still watches him and he doesn't like it, not when he feels so horrible and imperfect and probably too sweaty and smelling of paint and bodily odours. Probably his posture is bad and Chanyeol can see it. He can always see through him.

"Ice-cream or weed first?"

"You know I don't smoke, right?!" Baekhyun laughs.

"Come on..." Chanyeol grins. "Don't be like this. You've tried it once."

"And thought that I would die for a week." he says.

Baekhyun sits down, cross legged. The floor is too cold. He wants to buy some ochre coloured chairs-2 would be fine-maybe even a swing and a nice glass table.

"Here. Yours." Chanyeol says, giving him the blunt. "And mine."

"Thanks." Baekhyun smiles.

"So...what were you doing over here?"

Baekhyun stares at the blunt between his fingers. He hasn't smoked one before.

"Won't we...jump from here...when we are high?" he asks.

"Baek..."

"I mean...you aren't really in control of your senses and mind and you keep seeing weird shit and doing weird shit that-"

"Give it to me." Chanyeol says.

"But..."

"We'll eat the ice-cream instead."

He places the cups in front of him, with the spoons in the middle.

"You don't think that I-"

"I don't mean anything. We are tired and tomorrow I have work. Maybe it's not such a good idea."

Baekhyun sighs again.

"Hey...we'll smoke it another time, alright?"

 

-

 

It's one of those days. Baekhyun hasn't left the house in 5 days; he has actually counted them. Not even one step on the balcony either. And his painting is still standing unfinished on the desk. Not that he expected it to go anywhere even though it's just a small A5 page and he only has to draw some ice creams and bikes and people smiling.

He doesn't feel like smiling. Chanyeol has asked him once to go on a stroll with him but he refused. He did it the second time until Chanyeol really got busy and Baekhyun felt angry afterwards.

Why would he stop asking him?!

Baekhyun paces around the room; he wants to cry.

The problem is that he wants to go outside but at the same time why would he do it? He doesn't want to, anyways; get dressed and see people and go across the street and be 5 centimetres away from being run over by a truck with a drunk driver.

He doesn't feel like doing anything. Tomorrow. What day is tomorrow, after all? Friday? No, Saturday maybe, but Chanyeol has work and Chanyeol never works the weekends.

So it might just be Friday.

He doesn't feel like painting or wearing something decent or going outside. His brain is stuffed with teddy bear filling.

The door opens. Even the small creak makes him angry.

"Wanna eat?"

"What?"

Chanyeol shrugs.

"Then why the fuck did you ask?" he shouts.

"Because..."

"Because. What a good answer."

"Would you please stop sulking?" Chanyeol asks.

"I'm not. Sulking."

"Sure."

"You eat whatever the fuck you want to." Baekhyun mumbles and shuts the door close.

But he is hungry. And now he feels even more terrible as he wants to open the door and apologize to Chanyeol but out of principle and pride he doesn't.

Instead, he opens his laptop; a new incognito tab; a porn site. He clicks the first video he sees.

The title seems promising but he has never gotten off seeing porn. He just watches like movies.

"Damn!" he whispers.

The sound is on.

"Are you watching porn?!" Chanyeol yells.

The door opens. Baekhyun shuts the laptop but the sound is still on and words quickly turn into moans and wet sounds.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What is it?"

"When is the last time you went outside?" he asks.

Baekhyun shrugs. Glances at his fingers on the laptop and then he hears the moans once again.

"5 days ago."

"Baek..." Chanyeol whispers.

Baekhyun would say that this moment would be coloured in fuchsia. He doesn't know why but he has always hated that colour and truthfully, almost fighting with someone while having porn blasting in the room is something he considers he hates. Eats his pride whole until whatever made it disappear burps and maybe laughs in his face.

"This is awkward." Chanyeol says.

"You only think?" he laughs.

 

-

 

This is a better day.

Kyungsoo called him during the porn episode to invite him for some sort of book conference or conference over small dogs or anything.

But Baekhyun is outside and that's all that matters.

"So...what was this about? Again?" he whispers as he sits down on a red chair.

It would be crimson red.

"A book. She's some new author that just shocked everyone with her first book. Literary breakthrough. The new Harper Lee or something." Kyungsoo says.

The woman appears on stage and people start clapping.

"Nice." Baekhyun mumbles.

"Chanyeol told me some stuff."

She has started talking.

"What stuff?"

"You tell me. Have you two been getting along?" he asks.

"Fine. Good." Baekhyun says.

The woman is quite pretty. She talks fast, gesticulates too much and uses words he can't quite understand.

"Right. The paradise." Kyungsoo scoffs.

"I've been...under the weather the past week."

"And the one before and before. I know how it's going unlike him. Now you'll say that you can't paint and all the paintings before look like shit. Tell me something new."

Baekhyun shrugs. He concludes that the woman's voice is annoying.

"Don't tell me they don't." Baekhyun says.

"They look fine to me."

"And that's the problem. They are just fine. Passable. Decent pieces of crap that a mediocre idiot paints thinking he is the next Picasso or something." Baekhyun whispers.

"And do you think you are the next Picasso? That would be shocking."

The woman has stopped talking and now only Kyungsoo's voice could be heard.

"Stop the irony." Baekhyun whispers when she is no longer looking at them.

"I am not...ironic. If you could break your tiny little self-pity bubble and see there are people way worse than you." Kyungsoo says.

"Like who?"

It's silence once more.

After a while, Kyungsoo looks back at him.

"Irene and I are ending it."

"That's not what I would call tragic."

"Let's stop this."

"Right. It doesn't float your self-pity boat, right?"

 

-

 

But the outing isn't as terrible as later on, Chanyeol joins them at a little café near their apartment.

"How was it?"

He has his arm around Baekhyun's shoulders, squeezing them from time to time.

"Good." Kyungsoo smiles. "Baekhyun had told me that you're the new chief editor at 'Men's health'."

He hasn't.

"Yeah. I am." Chanyeol grins and looks instead at Baekhyun.

The terrible painting comes back to his mind and then the fact that Chanyeol earns more than him, has more friends, more of anything. He knows the feeling but tries to ignore it.

"Congrats. I mean...if you wanted you could model for it too." Kyungsoo says.

"I've been growing a belly." Chanyeol laughs.

"Don't get me started with bellies." he says. "You know...I-me and Irene broke it off-"

"Oh...sorry...I-"

"It's fine. It wasn't working out anyways. But..." Kyungsoo laughs-"last week I was in a bar with a mate and a girl-woman hits on me. And I'm just staring dumbly at her before I tell her I have a girlfriend."

They both laugh and Baekhyun looks from one to another, at their smiles and crinkles at the corners of their eyes.

"Of course I didn't." Kyungsoo finishes. "Long story short, I end with her in bed she calls my evergrowing belly cute. Cute."

Baekhyun smiles, feeling odd not to.

Outside, it's lightly pouring and he thinks he'd rather be out there or anywhere else but the arm is still around his shoulders. It's warm.

 

-

 

"I feel sorry for Kyungsoo." Chanyeol says as he takes off his blue shirt and black pants.

Baekhyun is sitting on the bed.

Their bed.

"Why?"

"Him and Irene have been together since high-school, right?"

"9th grade." Baekhyun says.

"That's a long time to be with a person."

"Well...if it doesn't work anymore, it doesn't. People change. She or he might be the exact opposite of what they used to be in 9th grade. Why would you keep someone next to you just because?"

"Memories. Love. Who knows?" Chanyeol says and sits next to Baekhyun. "Would you get bored with me?"

"You?"

"Me..." he asks.

"Aren't you everyone's wet dream?"

"Baek..." Chanyeol laughs.

"You like it. Being lusted over." Baekhyun whispers the last words.

He has always known it as well as the fact there would always be people waiting for him to make one wrong step or Chanyeol.

"Who wouldn't?"

Baekhyun isn't sure.

"Hey...are you jealous?"

"No...why would I be?"

Chanyeol laughs.

"I'm hot and as you said lusted over and..." Chanyeol whispers, coming closer to him.

Bites his ear lobe and then let’s go.

"You being jealous turns me on."

This time, is Baekhyun who laughs.

"Would you cheat on me?" he asks.

Chanyeol doesn't answer immediately. Baekhyun knows he wouldn't but at the same time, he feels hurt. Wounded in his ego.

"No. Would you?"

Baekhyun shakes his head.

Chanyeol is warm on top of him, his body heavy and firm underneath his touch as his breath makes his skin shiver.

Sometimes, Baekhyun really wonders whether or not he cheats on him. It makes him angry out of the blue, being wronged; he feels pleasure in pitying himself too.

Chanyeol takes off all of his clothes and throws them on the floor. He doesn't like being naked. Not in front of anyone; not in front of a mirror.

He closes his eyes and waits. Maybe Chanyeol has gotten bored of him or realized how mean and mediocre he really is.

But Chanyeol keeps kissing him, touching his cheek down to his neck, tracing down on his chest that shudders at the touches; soft, barely felt on the skin.

"Baek." he whispers.

"Yeah..."

"Baek..." he says, cupping his face, caressing it with his thumbs. "I..." Chanyeol laughs, glancing away. "I love you."

Baekhyun shakes his head. He suddenly wants to laugh because how could Chanyeol love him? Is it some sort of joke?!

"Baek...I do, I really do. I have for a while."

"Let's just..." he whispers, closing his eyes.

"You don't have to say it or say anything or...I just...wanted to say it, that's all."

 

-

 

Baekhyun wakes up scared that Chanyeol might be gone. He is not.

Everything is how they left it, thrown onto the floor. He thinks he needs to swipe it, maybe use the vacuum. Maybe even clean the entire apartment, wash the windows and whatever he might need to.

Chanyeol is lightly snoring, facing the ceiling that is not dark turquoise, but white; they ran out of paint.

"Heeey..." Chanyeol whispers.

"Hey. Slept well?" Baekhyun asks.

"I think so. You?"

"Maybe we should paint the ceiling too. Looks kind of funky. And maybe paint some dots in the living room. I was thinking about gold." Baekhyun says, looking up.

Maybe the dark turquoise is really too dark for the walls. He isn't sure.

"Baek..." Chanyeol laughs. "It's too early to think about paint. Or anything."

"Or men's health." Baekhyun laughs.

"Or that."

Chanyeol yawns, stretching his body.

"I'm going to find a job today. Maybe ask Kyungsoo to help me. After all, he's a ladies' man now, isn't he?"

"Job? What are you talking about?" Chanyeol asks.

He turns to his side, looking up at Baekhyun.

"Job. From 8 to 4 like everybody else."

"And your paintings?"

"What about those?"

"That is your dream." Chanyeol says.

"Yeah. Dream. Mediocre bullshit. Self indulged garbage that I want to believe in 30 years will make me become the next Jackson Pollock and win the grand prize of millions of dollars when in reality it's just garbage." Baekhyun says. "Kyungsoo thought he'd die married to Irene and now he's fucking hot chicks that he picks up in bars. So why can't I have a change of career?" he scoffs.

"I was just...I know you enjoy it. Painting I mean. But-"

"I've made 500 dollars from selling my 'paintings' in the past 4 months. 500!"

"Baek...that's just..."

"Living off of your money. Yeah. Like a fucking leech or something."

"You know I've never seen it like that..."

"I did." Baekhyun says. "And probably everybody else that knows the littlest bit about our relationship."

"You don't have to care about what everybody else thinks." Chanyeol says.

"But I do because I'm not you having a good job and a good life and-and-"

"Stop it."

 

-

 

Finding a job is harder than he has thought. He also caught Kyungsoo in a terrible mood.

"What's with the sudden change anyways? Has Chanyeol said something?" Kyungsoo asks.

He's smoking a cigarette and all the smoke seems to be attracted to Baekhyun's face.

No matter how much he waves it away, it is still there.

"Smoke goes to the non-smoker. That's a fact." Kyungsoo says.

Baekhyun isn't sure when the other has picked it up.

"You could try at a café."

"Huh..."

"What? Do you want to be the CEO of Apple out of the sudden?"

"No..." Baekhyun huffs.

"Then? You have no experience and you are not exactly that young." Kyungsoo says, throwing the bud on the ground.

"You are polluting the earth."

"Would you stop? Why aren’t you painting anymore?"

"Why did you break up with Irene?" Baekhyun asks instead.

The day is warm. End of September, but feels more like the beginning of it. Only the trees give it away; bare, with only a couple of leaves hanging on the dried out branches. The wind is colder, has the breath of winter caught in it.

"So..."

"I told you. We grew apart. She-she's not the woman I fell in love with anymore." Kyungsoo says.

"Well...you are not that man either. And maybe I've realized that painting is not for me."

 

-

 

He hasn't found a job. Not one that he might like. Or one that he was accepted for.

The apartment is empty when he enters, there's only him and those walls and the furniture.

He walks into the bedroom and stares at everything for a while until he finally grabs all of his drawings, paintings, anything.

They feel heavy. He throws them right in the middle of the living room in a big pile and sits down next to them. Maybe he should have brought the watercolours too but is he supposed to do with them?

The first drawing barely resembles one. Just a thin, wobbly line ending in a hole in the paper; he got angry with that one.

He takes it and tears it in 5 pieces. The second is an entire drawing; a house at the edge of a forest, coloured in a muddy brown with muddy green surrounding and muddy blue sky.

His hand trembles for a while above it before it grabs it and turns it into a ball. Baekhyun throws it into the wall. It rolls on the floor and stops next to the pile.

The third is another sketch: the lines are shaky, the anatomy is terrible, everything so poorly constructed.

He tears it apart and the paper keeps falling onto his lap until there is no more to rip.

Maybe he will finish before Chanyeol returns home so he wouldn't have to explain anything.

What is there to, anyways?

Baekhyun looks down at his pile; suddenly he feels hungry. Not for anything cooked but sweets and fast food. A big Cheeseburger with a portion of fries and a huge soda bubbling in front of him.

But the papers still look at him. Now they seem to be the ones that want to rip him apart.

He grabs another one, doesn't even look at it and crumples it. Then does it with another one and another and another until the floor is covered in crinkled papers, rolling around.

The window is open. He hasn't even noticed it.

There's no painting left. Not even one, all of them waiting on the floor, looking at him with pleading blank faces or painted ones in red and green and yellow.

He is hungry.

Baekhyun screams and then it all becomes quiet.

 

-

 

When Chanyeol returns, the floor is empty. Chanyeol is drunk. Walks in circles in the bare living room, laughs at anything Baekhyun says.

He wonders again if Chanyeol had cheated on him; his clothes smell like alcohol, smoke, perfume.

Baekhyun realizes he doesn't know what perfume he uses. He searches through the drawers and then goes to the bathroom. Samsara.

It smells terrible.

Chanyeol is sleeping on the bed, covering it all and snoring. Baekhyun hates drunks. Smelling of wine and beer and tart souls.

That's how his father used to smell. How his parents' bedroom used to smell. That's how every fight would begin: from alcohol. From one more filled water glass of wine.

He grabs a blanket and a pillow and sleeps in the living room.

 

-

 

He meets his former English teacher. Baekhyun has yet to find a job. Soon enough he realized he sucks at interviews and has nothing to say; nothing good to say about himself.

What are your qualities?

None.

Why do you want to work for us?

I don't.

And it goes on and on and on and Kyungsoo really tries to find him something to do but Baekhyun just really fucks it up.

And then, he meets his English teacher. Former. He was 17 when he was 37 and he had a big fat crush on him like everyone else. Baekhyun hated that all the other girls and maybe boys liked him in that teenage sexual sort of way and so, he made himself forget about that crush.

Until now.

It returned, after more than 8 years, accompanied by a strange, uncomfortable feeling.

"Kiddo!"

That's how he used to call him, everybody else. Nothing special but it made the entirety of 11th grade come back to him.

"Mr. Kim." he smiles.

Baekhyun is surprised that he even remembers him. He isn't even sure that the man knows his name.

"How are you?"

"Good." Baekhyun shrugs.

He wants to hug him.

Is it too much?

"Can I-can I hug you?" he asks.

"Yeah. Sure." the man laughs.

It's nice. Mr. Kim isn't that much taller than him, more well built but the embrace is nice. Warm. He doesn't really remember it after it's over.

"How are you?"

"Good. Too. With work, you know..." he laughs.

"Right."

It's awkward, Baekhyun knows it. Mr. Kim looks older, more tired, sad. At some point he heard that he has a son. Maybe the same age as Baekhyun, maybe younger, maybe older.

"Mhm...I-I should go." Baekhyun says.

He has nowhere to go but he needs to.

"Sure. I'll see you around."

"Sure. Mhm...good luck with school and everything and-yeah." Baekhyun shrugs.

He isn't sure what he has imagined before meeting him.

 

-

 

"I'm giving up." Kyungsoo says.

Baekhyun laughs.

"Do you suddenly find it funny?"

He shrugs.

"So...tell me. What chick have you fucked recently?" Baekhyun winks.

"None. I don't like it."

"Why? Freedom and-"

"I miss Irene! Fine?!"

"Wow. So you two are going to make up and all that bullshit and-"

"I don't want your opinion on it. Really. You could have taken a job by now. But I don't know what the heck you are looking for."

Baekhyun sighs and looks outside. It's raining again. Kyungsoo is stinking of nicotine and not even his extremely expensive perfume can hide it. He wonders what Irene thinks about it. Their house smelling like that.

"I'm...not sure..."

"How's Chanyeol?"

"Good. I think." Baekhyun says.

 

-

 

"How is job searching?" Chanyeol asks one night.

He sits next to him on the couch and wraps an arm around his shoulders. Chanyeol smells like shower gel; men's cologne mixed with soap. It is decent.

"Let's paint this room chartreuse."

"What?" Chanyeol laughs.

"It's a colour between yellow and green and...I think it was named after some liquor." Baekhyun says.

"If you like it...why not?" Chanyeol says and kisses him on the cheek. "You are the artist in the house after all."

"Don't." Baekhyun whispers.

"What? I actually really like your art and I...I saw some of it in the trash. Why?"

"Because it's garbage."

"Baek."

"Job searching is going terribly too." he says after a while.

"Baek..."

"I can't do anything right, fine?!"

"You will, you-you just need some adjusting to do and-and find something that you like and-"

"Chanyeol. Just don't. It's embarrassing." Baekhyun says. "I know you want to be nice and positive but there's no need to."

"Then let's talk about the apartment. How should we do then kitchen?"

"Your kitchen." Baekhyun laughs.

"It is yours too."

"Of course. Because I step inside of it or because I sometimes try to cook something terrible?"

"Because this is your house too. Ours." Chanyeol says.

Baekhyun sighs and moves further away from him so that he can see his face.

"It is yours. I should pay rent too. And-"

"Would you stop it?! I never asked for you to do any of that. So why do you insist now? Chanyeol asks.

"Because." he whispers. "I feel useless otherwise. So let me pay rent."

 

-

 

He couldn't sleep that well. For a couple of nights now even though Chanyeol has been snoring softly next to him. He couldn't eat that much either or at times, he would eat too much.

After a while, finally, he found a job. Kyungsoo found him a job, after some talking to some people and convincing others that Baekhyun could be a phone operator. That he wouldn't fuck this up too.

"So. You can work from home too. But they've told you everything." Kyungsoo says.

Answer phone calls and emails from people who have trouble with their electric devices bought from different companies.

Baekhyun thinks that it is decent enough. Mediocre enough to fill his time.

My washing machine is not working anymore.

Have you tried switching it off and on?

No.

He thinks he can do it. Drowning himself in others' electrical problems until he would forget about his own. What are his anyways?

Chanyeol is proud, or that's what he dares to think as he smiles at him more than usual.

Even his mother calls to congratulate him at the news that finally, her 26 year old Baekhyun has his first grown up job. Next it would be the wedding and having somehow a kid that he would have to take care of as he is the one working from home. Keep the job for as long as he can. Until he dies and it's all over.

 

-

 

"What do you think about eating out?" Chanyeol asks. "We could meet with some friends too."

"Your friends." Baekhyun whispers.

"We could invite Kyungsoo."

"He's in France with Irene." he says.

"Oh. They made up?"

Baekhyun nods. Turns off the TV. He remembers that he hasn't told Chanyeol that he loves him. But Chanyeol hasn't said it aftewards either.

"I...love you."

Chanyeol smiles, brightly.

"I love you even more." he says and cups his face; kisses him on the lips and Baekhyun wants to feel better, happier but he doesn't.

He only feels strange. Chanyeol laughs and Baekhyun is glad that he is happy; at the same time he envies him. Why can't he be the same way?

 

-

 

They are 6 around the table. He is sitting next to Chanyeol, in between Chanyeol and someone he has just met.

Everyone laughs at something; they all know each other from the magazine, from high-school, have memories together.

Baekhyun feels like an intruder. Not even when Chanyeol holds his hand and whispers something in his ear, he doesn't feel better.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah...just tired." he says.

Chanyeol has a couple too many glasses of wine, laughs brightly, is chatting with everyone. He seems happy and glowing, in that inebriation state. Baekhyun knows he'll have to drive them home but he doesn't want to.

He hates it. Doesn't trust his decisions, turns; seems like it's the first time he has seen a street that he walks on every day. The traffic and cars scare him. The wheel scares him.

But he does it nonetheless because Chanyeol is drunk next to him and cannot judge how badly he drives, how badly he panics.

The car stops in front of their building. Baekhyun sighs and rests his head on the wheel.

Chanyeol is sleeping.

 

-

 

"Babyyyyy..." Chanyeol drags out the words as Baekhyun takes the clothes off his body.

They smell like alcohol and perfume and outside.

"You...are drunk." Baekhyun says.

Chanyeol grabs his hands and kisses them sloppily until, with a pull, gets Baekhyun on top of him.

"Baby..." he whispers again as he brushes away the hair on his forehead. But instead, his fingers poke Baekhyun's eyes.

He winces. Sits next to him on the mattress, staring at the white ceiling.

"You don't want me?" Chanyeol whispers.

Baekhyun looks at him and then kisses him on the lips. They taste horribly, like wine.

"I do." he says.

They kiss for a while, Baekhyun doesn't know how long. He only remembers the taste and how chapped Chanyeol's lips were on his.

They fall asleep at some point.

He wakes up hugged from behind by Chanyeol, almost crushed at his chest, feeling too warm, too sweaty, like peeing. But he doesn't move. No. He doesn't want to. He is slowly breathing, keeping his eyes closed as all his thoughts have yet begun to swirl around his mind. It's quiet. But outside is raining and the room looks dark.

Chanyeol shifts next to him, hugs him tighter.

His bladder hurts. But he doesn't move. He thinks that they really should paint the living room and buy a carpet. The room has too much echo.

Down on the desk, he sees a paint brush. He must have missed it when he threw everything in the garbage. It's small, thin, all the hairs are falling off. He remembers it. The first one he bought when he moved in their new apartment.

Chanyeol shifts in his sleep but doesn't wake up.

Baekhyun remembers yesterday, his quietness at the table, how everyone else has acted. How he acted.

"Heeey." Chanyeol whispers.

"Hey." Baekhyun says. "I'm gonna make breakfast, alright?"

"Yeah. Sounds perfect."

He walks into the kitchen, his feet bare on the cold tiles. His reflection stares at him from the window and then from the knife he is holding.

If he were braver or stupider, he would cut his veins. Or swallow a handful of pills.

But he is neither of those.

So Baekhyun butters the bread and makes some coffee, puts the plates on the table and calls for Chanyeol.

Kisses him on the cheek, ruffles his hair and starts eating.

Washes the dishes and says "I love you" when Chanyeol leaves for work.

Does all of this and then goes in front of the desk and starts answering the emails of people having trouble with their boiler and stove and toaster, answers calls and makes some rice with vegetables.

He waits for Chanyeol and stops working as it's already 5 in the afternoon. They watch TV and talk about how they should paint the living room.

Kyungsoo came back from France so they chat about that too, how they should invite them both over. How it would be nice to spend Christmas at Chanyeol's parents.

Baekhyun breathes out and closes his eyes. He dreads tomorrow.

The TV is turned off, Chanyeol complains how his back hurts so Baekhyun gives him a massage with no fuss, until his fingers and wrists hurt and Chanyeol just complains that it did more bad than good.

He closes his eyes. Thinks about a lot of things.

Tomorrow he has to pay the electricity bill.

 

-the end-

**Author's Note:**

> comments are well loved:)


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